"2021: Window to the Future" - Article by Emeritus Professor Nikolaos Kanellopoulos, published in the website of the Committee Greece2021 for the landmark anniversary of 200 years since the Greek Revolution of 1821.
2021: Window to the Future
by Emeritus Professor Nikolaos Kanellopoulos 1
We celebrate the bicentenary of the 1821 Hellenic Revolution. Activating our imagination, let us open in 2021 a window to the Future.
I believe we must focus on the use of innovative technologies in our development-creative activities. It's not easy. Our society opposes to change. It considers the ‘past’ as ‘present’ and the ‘present’ as ‘future’. The reality is that in the last 200 years, computer technology has exponentially accelerated the development of global knowledge. Today, we are developing innovative mRNA technology vaccines for COVID-19 thanks to quantum computers!
How did we get here?
1821: Charles Babbage creates the Analytical Machine (1st generic analogue computer since the Antikythera Mechanism of 120 BC) and Augusta Ada Byron, daughter of the poet Lord Byron, programs it (recognized in 1950 as the Mother of Programming).
1847: George Boole defines the Binary Algebra that connects mathematics with logic (1 = ‘true’, 0 = ‘false’).
1913: Bertrand Russell connects Boole’s Binary Algebra with computational theory.
1936: Alan Turing theoretically describes a Computer Machine.
1943: Von Neumann invents the architecture of Turing’s Computer Machine.
1948: Claude Shannon associates the Von Neumann’s Computer Machine with electricity (1937) and establishes the Science of Informatics.
1958: The invention of the transistor (Bell labs 1948) and that of the integrated circuits (Jack Kilby) lead to the Electronic Digital Computer.
1989: Tim Berners Lee creates the World Wide Web, leading to globalization.
2007: D-WAVE, a Canadian company, develops the 1st Quantum Computer, where 'truth' and 'false' co-exist!
2020: NASA is landing satellites on planets and comets, while scientists at Menten-AI, a start-up pharmaceutical company in San Francisco, is using the D-WAVE Quantum Computer in their research towards a COVID-19 vaccine.
In 1968, inspired by Hal, the Artificial Intelligence computer in the science fiction film 2001: a Space Odyssey, I proposed to my father to study at the university “Electronic Brain Engineering’ (renamed later ‘Computer Engineering’). He expressed his doubts for such a career.
In 1969, my Grandmother, who in 1888 was born in a world with no electricity, saw on a glass (TV) Neil Armstrong walking on the Moon! Currently, as a TecnArtist, I research Augmented Reality and Hyperspace brain comprehension issues.
Our children are born in the middle of a technological Big-Bang. What will they see during their lives? It is hard to know, but I might see my Grandmother having vacation at the latest real (as opposed to science fiction) Hilton hotel on the Moon in secret, since the United Nations’ law of accepting immortality is again delayed due to conservative social thinking. Let us open in 2021 a Window to the Future. I open it every day. Today, I propose to the Hellenic Ministry of Education to establish a ‘Quantum Computer engineering’ BSc degree.
1 TechnArtist, Computer Science Engineer, Department of Audio and Visual Arts, Ionian University, Greece. Website: http://avarts.ionio.gr/en/department/professors-lecturers/323-kanellopoulos/ email: kane@ionio.gr
